1. Field
The present teachings relate to modelocked fiber lasers and amplifiers, such as for example, ultra-compact high power integrated fiber lasers with pulse width controlled and with concatenated sections of polarization maintaining fiber, as well as potential applications such as precision metrology.
2. Description of the Related Art
Modelocked fiber lasers offer advantages over traditional solid-state lasers for ultrafast optic applications. Modelocked fiber lasers can potentially be packaged in very small spaces and may also exhibit superior mechanical and thermal stability; see for example Femtolite™ Series made available by IMRA™ America, Inc, Ann Arbor, Mich. In particular, passively modelocked fiber lasers may allow compact designs because of the absence of bulky optical modulators.
To compete on an equal level with modelocked solid state lasers in ultrafast optics applications, however, modelocked fiber lasers preferably include the following features: 1) the output polarization state should preferably be well defined, 2) the construction of the fiber laser should preferably be adaptable to mass production, 3) the required optical elements should preferably be inexpensive, 4) the design concept should preferably comprise saturable absorbers with well controllable parameters and 5) implementing pulse amplification preferably be simple. These factors are important in the design of modelocked fiber lasers, and there is an ongoing need for improvements in such devices.